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Max Richter: The haunted ocean

Waltz with Bashir (2008) is a groundbreaking animated documentary by Israeli film maker Ari Folman.

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images. (IMDb)

Visually stunning, the film is a powerful meditation on responsibility and morality in times of conflict. Max Richter‘s soundtrack includes five different versions of “The haunted ocean”, the film’s recurrent (and majestic) main theme.

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[…] Over the years, Max Richter’s music has been repeatedly described as nostalgic, elegiac or cinematic. It then comes as no surprise that his music has been used on the soundtrack of films like Shutter Island or for the trailers of several recent films such as J. Edgar, Prometheus or even Terrence Malick’s latest opus To the Wonder. ”Shadow journal” is another case in point, and it is interesting to examine how two tracks from “The Blue Notebooks” ended up being used on Ari Folman’s ground breaking anti-war animated documentary Waltz with Bashir. […]